Resinous film base materials that are applied commonly in the manufacture of photographic silver halide emulsion materials or silver complex diffusion transfer reversal (DTR) image-receiving materials are inherently hydrophobic. The usual gelatino-silver halide emulsion layers and image-receiving layers containing development nuclei are highly hydrophilic.
A more recently developed diffusion transfer material is used in a dye diffusion transfer process wherein the dye diffusion transfer processing is controlled by the development of (an) image-wise exposed silver halide emulsion layer(s). Such dye diffusion transfer material contains a hydrophilic image-receiving layer for fixing the transferred dyes e.g. by mordanting.
A survey of dye diffusion transfer imaging processes and materials has been given by Christian C. Van de Sande in Angew. Chem.--Ed. Engl. 22 (1983) No. 3. 191-209 and in Research Disclosure November 1976 item 15162.
It is difficult to secure adequate anchorage between the hydrophobic film base and a hydrophilic colloid layer, especially because the anchorage must remain firm throughout all the liquid processing steps the material is subjected to.
Polyester material, e.g. polyethylene terephthalate, has found commercial application as a film base for photographic materials and many techniques for improving the adherence of hydrophilic colloid layers thereto have been proposed. Polyester film material is rather expensive and where the use of cheaper hydrophobic film materials without loss of particularly desired qualities is possible, or other properties, e.g. heat-sealing at moderate temperature, are required, polyester material is replaced as a film support. A substitute for polyester material is polyvinyl chloride but may pose ecological problems on incineration.
Polyvinyl chloride supports have been used in the production of DTR-image receiving materials as described e.g. in published EP-A 0065329 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,429,032 and in published EP-A 0276506 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,286.
Chlorine-free ecologically acceptable film forming polymers wherefrom transparent mechanically very strong film base materials can be made are polycarbonates and polypropylene (ref. e.g. Hermann Rompp--Chemie Lexikon--Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung Stuttgart--6. Auflage, (1966), p. 5034 and 5062-5063).